Random thoughts from a few cantankerous American physicians. All contributors are board certified. Various specialties are represented here. I do not know where this will lead but hope it will at least be an enjoyable read. All of the names mentioned in this blog are pseudonyms, the ages have been changed, and in half the cases the gender as well. All photographs are published with patient consent or are digitally altered to preserve anonymity. Trust us, we're doctors.

21 comments:

Our community knows that we'll give you one of our limited ED beds immediately if you come by EMS, but if you walk in with a minor issue you'll be asked to wait. I have argued against this point 'til I'm blue in the face, but to no avail.

I want to hire both of those nurses! If anyone ever wants to know what an ER nurse looks and sounds like...those are the models from which all great ones are made!

Any of you have those frequent EMS patients? Where I worked before, we had a homeless drunk who'd call 911 from the shelter to take him to the hospital across town (near the good restaurants) for some bogus complaint. Then after a few hours of dumpster diving at the good places, he'd call 911 again to bring him to our hospital in "the hood" closer to his "home". The EMS would just call in and simply say "John, ETA 8 minutes" (not his real first name just for clarification to the HIPAA police).

Here, we had a little old lady who frequently got lonely and came to the ED 73 times last year.

I tried and tried on both of those patients to educate them. I even pointed out that some child might die because they took a unit out of service for their BS...bottom line was just like the people interviewed in the piece - they didn't care since it was FREE.

had a patient in residency who was high on crack and thought we were witches. she called 911 from her bed in our ER and the police called us to tell us that a patient in our ER kept calling 911. i went in and took the phone away from her.

We have had them come by ambulance, not get seen for a while and call 911 from the lobby in an attempt to take them to another hospital. This video needs to be shown on national TV as a public service announcement, because even if these people don't have a ride to the hospital, I know they have a plasma and cable.

My favorite all-time abuse of ambuli story is the patient who just HAPPENED to live near our hospital who just HAPPENED to have lost all her money at the casino nearly an hour away who just HAPPENED to experience ill-defined 'abdominal pain' or some such nonsense at the casino. FREE RIDE HOME!

Am I the only one who found that EMS Commissioner to be dumber than the average bear? He sees the EMS system as one that should encompass more than heart attacks. And they wonder why some troops shoot their superiors...All I can hope is that no one tells Hillary about this tool - he'll become the new poster boy.

maybe cat's momma needs to be driving an ambulance in Cleveland- or at least having a stern talk with the douche EMS commissioner While I can empathize with people with limited access to care, what makes them feel like they are entitled to clog up a whole EMS team for their itchy butt? Sheesh.

Lynn: I don't know if the guy was just dumber than a box of fish sticks or just trying to defend their department policies. The bottom line is that they're scared of lawsuits so they take everybody. But he wouldn't say that. If he truly IS that dumb, I don't think he'll be Hillary's poster boy, I think he'll be the EMS Czar in the Rodham-Clinton Utopian Health Plan.

I think the EMS units should all be changed to VW Minibuses with flowers painted on the sides.

So if he keeps at it long enough, he'll eventually destroy enough brain cells that he will become completely dependent on the Nany State to take care of him. Yeah, I really want MY taxes used to take care of this non-productive idiot who purposely destroyed his brain by getting high!

At least, I work and pay enormous amount of taxes on the cigarettes I buy. In fact, TX collects more in Tobacco taxes than it does in OIL taxes. Did you know that? Or it used to...I haven't checked the Comptrollers page in a while.

There's one around here who calls 9-11 for an itchy crotch when she has herpes outbreaks or yeast infections, but always has her doors locked and won't open them, so the fire dept has to bust down the door per policy to get her. Sometimes, she calls 9-11 and doesn't give out information, so they send police, fire, AND paramedics to the scene.

They says she is usually found on her living room couch in the gynecological position, vigorously scratching her personal area after the doors are busted down, sometimes saying, "IT ITCHES SO BAD!"

Bravo to the creators of that story. I'd like to see more of these-- maybe at some point we can stimulate a flash of outrage from the otherwise apathetic and uninformed masses. I'd be happy if this was a hotbutton issue for even just a few weeks.

Maybe it is optimistic of me, but I feel that people would care about this if they truly knew about what goes on.

I watched that clip from my living room either last night or the night before and thought, "it's about time that people see themselves for what and who they are." I've heard each and every one of those excuses from the squads as they transported the patients into the ER. We would be busting at the seams and someone would come in because they had a hangnail that started to bleed after they pulled on it. (True story).

But in the end, just like the woman who sat on the steps said, "if you know a way to get in when you don't feel good, I think you should use it." ...and they do.

Why don't people wake up? If the ER can allow you to sit in the waiting room for 10 hours, do you think you need to be there at all? Just some food for thought.

You'd think those who feel entitled would try to harass their physicians to get in for same-day appointments or whatever. It would seem that if you're a welfare princess, the last place you want to be is in a waiting room for 16 hours. For a bladder infection, they'd PROBABLY get you in or refer you to an after-hours clinic. If you can call 9-11, you can call the appointment line at your local Medical Assistance-accepting clinic.

In the meantime: AZO! URISTAT! I know that costs money and it should be FREE if you're a princess, but...well, nevermind.

Have to love the magic red charge card...........Had one gal once with a bladder infection 1/2 block from the hospital, and called theCab'u'lance, to take her to the ER to get seen faster. We told her by time we arrived from across town she could have walked. That was when we got the magic"We'll if i go by amb-lance, I get seen faster then da clinic." How long had it been going on ? 3 days.Wish our News folks would focus on this issue, but they wont for the dreaded PC.Same person who complains of paying $1-2 dollars a script, cause they are poor but smoking a pack of cigs.

Great video. Loved the one who went home from hospital to call ambulance to hospital. OK, so they shouldn't be getting an ambulance ride to the ER. Let's not forget the main issue: They should not be GOING to eht ED at all!

By the way, have to get a BS check from you all on this one: passed out in shower got third degree burns. Sounds like horse to me. Even in Iraq, everyone lies.